Dani California ((NOT YET FINISHED))

"Are we there yet" was never a question on Dani's mind. All she knew was the open country roads, the cheap drive-through meals, and the smells of cigarette smoke and alcohol. The road changes her, and not for the better. But going on nothing but adrenaline and the advice of an old wannabe rock star, Dani gets the chance to prove that your upbringing doesn't always have to foreshadow your future.

3. Gone

At the very crack of dawn, Mama headed back across the parking lot towards our old green truck. Exhausted and half-stoned, she fell asleep in the front seat without even the slightest realization that anything was different. Hours and hours passed and she slept until the noontime sun began to blaze through the windshield. Grumbling and moaning about her aching bones and her pulsing head, she gobbled up the half-eaten burger I had left on the shotgun seat and searched around for an unopened beer. When Mama had gulped down two whole bottles, she began to doze off again. And it was like that for a while - an endless cycle of sleeping, eating, drinking, sleeping. It was like that until she noticed that something was missing, and searched for a bit to find it. But upon realizing it was nowhere to be found, she rolled her eyes and cursed at the sky. And she drove out of the lot and off down the road.

At least, that's how I imagine it happened. Because I had left, and Mama didn't find me. I sometimes wondered if she had even looked, or if she had really cared to find me. But Mama was no longer just Mama. She had become a shell of her old self, a hollow shell that turned to all the things she had once called "dangerous" and "evil" whenever she needed to feel numb. I wasn't the only one gone - Mama was gone, too.